2026, April 13-19

Quite the eventful week! 

Monday morning, Hallie got Mike a birthday drink from the local Starbucks. They also took pictures to send each other from their respective spots. The baristas at Mike's store might have thought him a little weird. Hallie takes selfies at her store all the time.  

Kenyon was also there, and Hallie and he sat in a basketball-themed snack promotional chair her Smiths had. 

That's either a really big chair or a really small human. Or both.

Mike's weather was gorgeous, if a little brisk. 

Hallie had a couple of gifts sent to Mike's apartment too: a birthday cake and a smart scale. Since last fall, Mike has lost a significant amount of weight, but without a scale, he didn't know how much that was. Now he does! And birthday cake in a jar? Yum!!  

Mike received an amazing birthday present: someone made an offer on the house!!!! We're under contract, and (pending inspection) will be out of our house sooner than expected. It's a bittersweet feeling, but it's a relief too.

Brooklyn found Kai's toy and didn't want to come home. Hallie loves that girl.

Hallie got new spring-themed nails from Shelby. Shelby, is a relative and has graduated from nail school recently. Hallie enjoys helping her learn new technique. 

Speaking of skills practice, in the evenings, Mike has hopped back on to doing some graphic design work for the department. He drew this image and then went to the Makerspace on campus and used the Cricut and sticker machines they have there to turn the digital creations into real-life ones. 

His department now has an "official" emblem, hand-crafted by him (Just don't tell the people who do branding for the university). 

He also got to order pins and stickers to give to graduates from the department's programs. 

(Of course he had to add some department swagger his office.)

Both Springville and Missoula got snow later in the week. It didn't stick in the valleys, but hopefully some will stay in the higher elevations. 

This dramatic view over university buildings comes from the top of a building-exterior staircase near Mike's office. 

The snow falling off to the west came over Mike's office not long after. 

Eliza spent a significant amount of time helping Leslie on Friday. Among her activities, she found a mouse trapped in a bucket. That little thing was still alive in Eliza's hand. Leslie's dog Dooley made sure to let Eliza know that he was not fond of her holding the mouse.

On Friday and Saturday, Mike attended the 57th Annual Kyiyo Pow Wow Celebration at the Adams Center. He caught Grand Entries on two days and the Adult Dancing on Saturday. 

Hallie's Saturday consisted in part of going to the Bigtooth Maple Festival in Woodland Hills with Amanda. Hallie finds it fun when a good day shapes up unexpectedly. After they went to the festival, the ladies planned a trip to Walt Disney World (where Hallie has never been).

Hey! Syrup from Montana MapleWorks in Missoula!

She bought a turquoise ring to go with the wavy ring she has (Look how it matches her nails). Hallie has purchased other jewelry from Little Wildflower before and is a fan.

Some more photos from the pow wow. Mike moved from the west to the east side of the Adams Center to get different views. Below is the Blackfeet drum circle. 

Fancy dancing. 

Google is always doing something different with the photos we save in the cloud. Here are some mixups Mike made of the cat, the dog, and himself.  Hallie wants to get a tattoo of cartoon Kai. Make can go over to the Makerspace and get some real-life stickers of the pets now. 

(Mike's not as big a fan of the original upon which the sticker is based. Oh, well.) 

Hallie had to work on Sunday. There was a bit of a ruckus, but she got through it. Needless to say, the bumbling job she did today made her decide that May 3rd is her last day at Starbucks.

Then she and Cristy went out for lunch at Via 313. Hallie wants to go to places they won't have in Montana. After lunch, Hallie picked up Eliza to run an errand, and now they are spiffing the house up before the inspection on Tuesday afternoon.

Mike spent the day doing chores and watching the Argentinian dark comedy TV show El Encargado ("The Boss" or "The Building Superintendent") on Hulu. He remembers Guillermo Francella from all the way back when Francella was on TV back when Mike lived in Buenos Aires in the '90s. He always gets a kick from viewing media from Argentina. As it turns out, this show was filmed just a few blocks from where he and Hallie stayed with Elvira in Belgrano in 2002. Mike even found the building where the story is set (a character in its own right) on Google Maps. 

In other local news, the periwinkles are in bloom in Missoula. Sunday gave family members in Utah and Montana some phenomenal spring weather.